Eye10TX wrote:As of our local 10PM news tonight in Houston, it was to be only refugees from the SuperDome who would be let in to the Astrodome.
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From the 10PM News:
The 10 shelters in Houston are now full and are turning people away. The Astrodome will only shelter those who were already in the SuperDome, no one else.
Reporter interviewed one family of 7 who drove in and had been turned away from 3 shelters, so went to the Astrodome. The gates are not yet open for the people coming on the SuperDome buses, expected to start arriving within a few minutes (Note: the first one came 7 minutes later, after the program had ended).
A man had brought serving pans full of pounds and pounds of BBQed sausage and roasted hot dogs down to the AstroDome from his restaurant to give any refugees who were there, but he was turned away by the Health Department, who said he couldn't serve them. He said they would be going to waste otherwise. This was apparently happening right in front of the evacuee family also being interviewed on TV--the ones who had no more money for gas and needed food and water! (I hope they got together with the BBQ guy after the cameras stopped rolling.)
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FWIW, the man from the refugee family never stated that the shelters were FULL where they had been "turned away." He was acting like he was being discriminated against for some reason. He had signs all over his SUV saying "Let us In" and things like that.
If it's true that they relented on the rules in the Astrodome a little later, then maybe he and his cute little kids did get to go in. I'm just hoping he wasn't "shelter-shopping" or something!
Next busloads from NOLA Superdome expected 1AM-3AM.
I was pretty irritated with these stories. Okay, so the guy was turned away from the Astrodome. The media made it sound like the people organizing the Astrodome refugees were some kind of monsters not allowing this man in. Well, the media is standing right there - THEY have all the information at their fingertips about where to go for shelter. dUH.
The Astrodome is trying to accomodate 23,000 people and possibly more since people were still coming into the Superdome to get on the buses. They have the cots and the food to accomdate these people. I don't think they are prepared for possibly several hundred more people than that right now, and they probably feel that those coming out of the Superdome are in the direst of straits (at least the man in the car has fresh air!)
I blame the media completely for this one. And I don't understand KTRK doing this kind of crap story. They didn't even tell the volunteer sides of it.
And i hope the guy with all the food to give away gave some hotdogs to the hot man with seven kids in the car. He shoudl have known better. If he cooks commercially at all in this city, he knows we have really strict food codes and vendor codes in the city. Hopefully, he found someplace else to give the food, or perhaps he could have stood outside somewhere and handed out the food.
